The region’s local debt markets are at a crucial point. International interest is growing. Investment banks are building up. But with one exception, domestic supply and demand remains limited. Can other countries follow Mexico’s lead? Euromoney investigates the dynamics of Latin America’s main bond markets.

EU policymakers need to speak directly to the Greek people – and those of Spain, Portugal and Ireland – and convince them that they have a vision for the eurozone that includes them as equals, not serfs.

Few thought that the marriage of a Chinese securities firm with an Asian brokerage which had a unique, and at times disruptive, culture could work. But two years on, Citic and CLSA have proved they can be at least the sum of their parts. Can the combination now become a true regional powerhouse as its leaders hope?

Having the largest and most successful corporations in Asia as clients brings prestige and profit to the banks involved, but just beneath the very top is where the fight for the spoils of the future is raging. How do you pick – and bank – Asia's next generation of corporate champions?

The investment banking arm of Banco Espírito Santo’s search for an investor had begun long before the shenanigans at its parent bank began to come to the surface in the summer of 2014, according to Francisco Cary, BESI’s deputy CEO and chief financial officer.

The country’s banking industry is growing fast. New laws designed to encourage foreign investment make it easier for offshore firms to wholly purchase local lenders. But there are plenty of barriers to entry aside from regulation.

As China gradually loosens its grip on its FX regime, an ostensibly overvalued RMB is expected to fall back in line with global currencies, presenting a range of opportunities for traders, ranging from USD/CNH spot positions and the options market, to punts on the CNY-CNH differential.

Malaysia’s quest to create a regional champion with a large Islamic bank came to an end when a plan for a three-way merger was scrapped. The country’s second-largest lender by assets is now retrenching to boost returns and eyeing strategic acquisitions.

Everyone was a little nervous at the contents of the first inquiry into the nation’s financial services industry in over 25 years. It isn’t as traumatic as most feared, but it leaves some important issues unanswered.

What goes up must come down, even the renminbi. Having appreciated by more than 30% since 2008 against a trade-weighted basket, there is growing consensus that 2015 will see further falls in the Chinese currency.

An in-depth guide to global currency wars; how Beijing is seeking to globalize the renminbi, through currency swaps and trade-financing facilities; the rise of the offshore bond market; and how fee-hungry banks are salivating at the prospect of the RMB’s growth.

The region’s local debt markets are at a crucial point. International interest is growing. Investment banks are building up. But with one exception, domestic supply and demand remains limited. Can other countries follow Mexico’s lead? Euromoney investigates the dynamics of Latin America’s main bond markets.

With equity and now debt funding getting scarcer in public markets, Latin American corporates must think of other options. For longer-term investors, and for those with a strong appetite for risk, the region’s troubles are a rare opportunity.

Bring up the topic of Chilean financial markets to a financier with a regional role and more often than not the adjective they use is 'sophisticated'. However, while the country has the longest-standing investment-grade credit rating and has strong, well-capitalized banks, that isn’t synonymous with sophistication.

Having a buyside full of risk-averse investors is a common theme among Latin America’s local debt capital markets but Colombia takes this to the highest level. Unless you are locally-rated AAA or AA+ then forget about the debt markets – bank debt is for you.

Peru’s economy has been averaging more than 5% growth a year for the last 10 years but that growth has not, as yet, been matched by corresponding growth in the volume of bonds issued in its local debt capital markets.

Tax reforms from Chile’s new, left-leaning government are having an unsettling effect on the economy, which is also suffering from a plummeting copper price. The country’s new president is looking next to tackle inequality with further reforms, but as a result the pressure will ratchet up its strong credit rating.

The private banking industry in Latin America had a difficult 12 months as wealth creation slowed throughout the region. The picture for the year ahead looks brighter for some countries, but Brazil remains the dominant market and its prospects are still murky.

Belarus’s leaders are promising a dramatic package of reforms that could overhaul the country’s sclerotic command economy and reduce its dependence on Russia. The only trouble is, no one believes them. Mixed messages to the bond markets haven’t helped.

Belarus’s first deputy economy minister Alexander Zaborovsky insists that policymakers are keen to boost the share of the private sector in the economy through the development of new businesses. This meets with a high degree of scepticism locally, given the government’s record on the treatment of entrepreneurs.

Successive crises have taken their toll on the private-equity industry in emerging Europe and enthusiasm for the region has waned. Nevertheless, its combination of strong growth and opportunities for convergence with western Europe continues to attract a hard core of supporters.

Boosted by a rich run of privatizations, the Turkish M&A market burst into life last year, hitting the highest total value of deals for close to a decade. The hope for 2015 is that the same feat can be repeated. In an election year, anything is possible.

While finance ministers come and go, one man has been a figure of constancy for the nation’s economy: central banker Mugur Isarescu. He has created a fully functioning central bank in a market economy from the shell of a communist regime. With inflation under control and the exchange rate stable, what is his next challenge?

Russia has been caught in the eye of a perfect storm. Battered by falling oil prices, US and EU sanctions and a dramatic market correction as the rouble was allowed to float, the currency has been in free-fall and liquidity has largely evaporated, with many brokers ceasing rouble trading altogether.

If timing is everything, then Emirates NBD should be nothing. The merger that created the bank brought together two wholly dissimilar institutions, just as the global financial crisis brought Dubai to the brink of default. It has suffered ever since. Until now. Have Emirates NBD – and Dubai – really turned the corner?

Much has been said about the unfortunate timing of the Emirates NBD merger just before the global financial crisis, but what is often forgotten is just how challenging that merger would have been in any conditions.

Ghana has been in discussions with the IMF since September over a new programme, but the March deadline is likely to be missed as the administration seeks to resist pre-election giveaways and cut the public-sector wage bill, say analysts.

In a bid to tackle Ghana’s economic woes and restore confidence in government, Euromoney understands that the president might replace the central bank governor and minister of finance in the next couple of months.

The slow and steady rise of high net-worth individuals across Africa has piqued the interest of wealth managers. But who has the upper hand – regional players close to their clients, or global names with solid reputations?

The World Bank reports that banks need profound reform; analysts catalogue a long list of problems; and the country’s new cabinet has been roundly rejected by most political parties. Can the new president juggle competing political factions and unblock the economic pipeline to bring badly needed growth quick enough?

A downgraded outlook from rating agency Fitch highlighting the sovereign’s economic difficulties was predicted by its country-risk score trend. Moody’s is lagging behind, but might respond when it reviews the sovereign in June.

A return to the international capital markets in April is whetting the appetite of yield-hungry investors eager to snap up the $1.5 billion Eurobond likely to herald the first in a series of market offerings. But are the sovereign borrower’s risks being ignored?

The majority of Central and Eastern European sovereigns have been upgraded by Euromoney's country risk survey since the third quarter of 2014. Hungary is still irking the experts with its heightened political risks, but elsewhere there are still reasons to be cheerful about the region’s prospects.

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